


Terrible Things

by sendricamp



Category: Pitch Perfect (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:21:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sendricamp/pseuds/sendricamp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life could do amazing things, and life could do terrible things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terrible Things

**Author's Note:**

> For the past two and a half months, the song Terrible Things by Mayday Parade has been torturing my brain. I finally sat down and wrote this, and it is absolutely heartbreaking, and for that I apologize. I do hope you enjoy, however.

“Mom, can we talk?” Noah asked, setting his backpack next to the couch. Beca put her keys on the table by the front door, hanging her jacket on a chair before sitting on the couch next to her ten year old. He looked around the room, his eyes settling on the photo frame that sat above the fireplace. “Tell me about her,” he said, turning to look at Beca. “I know she is my birth mother, and I want to know about her so I have something to tell the kids at school who tease me for not looking like you.”

Beca closed her eyes for a moment, taking a few deep breaths before looking into her sons bright blue eyes. “Chloe,” she breathed, saying the name aloud for the first time in who knows how long. “She was everything to me, and I think she knew it long before I did.”

“What happened?”

“I am only telling you this, right now, because I think you are old enough to know. You need to understand that life can be amazing to you, and it can do some really messed up things, okay?” He nodded. “I met her when I was eighteen. I wanted to be a music producer, but my dad, who worked at this school in Atlanta, decided I needed a college degree before I ran off to California. I first met Chloe at the activities fair, where she and your Aunt Aubrey tried to get me to join their a cappella group.”

“But you don’t sing,” Noah said, a smile on his face.

“I sing sometimes. Anyways, a month or so later, my dad realized that I was doing nothing but skipping classes and working at the radio station, so he told me that if I showed him I was actually participating in something, that I could go to Los Angeles after my first year, with him paying my way. I was singing in the showers, and Chloe walked right into my stall and refused to leave until I sang with her. I wanted so desperately to connect with people, and there she was. We both loved music, singing.. everything about that connection that music can offer two people.”

She leaned back on the couch, turning slightly and smiling as Noah mimicked her post.

“I tried out for the group, the Barden Bellas, and I think she was the only reason Aubrey let me in. Over that first year, she was the one person who was right there for me without being pushy about it. I let her in past walls I hadn’t let anyone past. She just.. she had this personality that could light up a room. She definitely lived like there was no tomorrow.” Beca brought her hand up to wipe her eyes, knowing it was just the beginning of the tears. “I was really stupid, Noah. I was so stupid because even though she was right there for me, I took so long to see it. It wasn’t until my third year at Barden that I even thought to kiss her, and so much time had been wasted by then.”

The young boy moved closer to Beca, his hand linking in hers.

“The first time I told her that I loved her, we were sitting underneath a tree on the quad at school, my head on her shoulder as I worked on some homework. It just came out, and it felt so natural, and the feeling that I got in my chest when she said it back I only felt once more after that.. and that was when I first held you.”

“You were really happy,” he observed.

“I was. Remember, though, I said that while life can do amazing things.. it can also do some pretty terrible ones, too. On our two year anniversary, I surprised her with breakfast in bed, and in addition to all of the orange juice and waffles, I had made a box out of paper and set it next to her drink, and in that box was a ring. I had always been so opposed to marriage, because my parents didn’t stay married. It hit me really hard, but with Chloe..”

“It felt right?”

“It felt so right. She said yes, and she knew that she was going to start working on me wanting a baby as soon as she could.”

“Why wouldn’t you want a baby?”

“My parents. I was already taking a risk with my heart by marrying her.. I couldn’t bear to have a child and then watch as I was part of the reason its world fell apart. I told her I would think about it, and she never pushed the issue. We got married a year after I popped the question, and it was on the beach in Miami, with no one but us and our best friends and our parents. Chloe had written the most beautiful vows, recited them perfectly, and there I was.. stammering through them like I didn’t even know how to talk, but she had this smile on her face.”

“An amazing thing, before a terrible thing?”

Beca nodded. “A few months after we were married, I told her I wanted to have a baby, and we dug into our savings and started trying. It almost destroyed our marriage when the first pregnancy failed, but I couldn’t leave Chloe when she needed me the most. It really hurt her, emotionally, because she wanted it so bad. I didn’t know how badly I wanted it until it looked like we weren’t going to have it. She.. she didn’t really leave the house for a few months, and I threw myself into my work to try and drown the pain.”

“You weren’t there for each other like you wanted to be,” he observed.

“Exactly. It was seven months later when we really sat down and talked about everything. About how much we were afraid to lose. It was killing me not being there for her, and I was so selfish in thinking I was the only one hurting. We didn’t try again for another year. We wanted to make sure that we were still committed to each other and to the idea of starting a family before we made another decision like that.”

She stopped, watching Noah count on his hands, looking back at her when he realized that they were getting to him.

“We were very, very tense around the fourth month of the pregnancy, because we didn’t want anything to go wrong, but every single checkup showed that we had a healthy baby growing,” she said, closing her eyes, bringing her hands up to try and slow the tears. “When she went into labor, even through the contractions, she never lost that smile, because this is what we had been working and planning for.”

Noah’s eyes widened, showing that his brain had caught up to what he was about to be told. He leaned over, wrapping his arms around Beca’s neck.

“The doctor said it was a boy, and I just.. I thought Chloe was tired. She looked at me, and her eyes just weren’t as bright, and she said Noah Adam. If I ever wanted to name you anything else, it left my mind when she whispered that she loved me. There had been extra bleeding, they said, and there was nothing they could have done. I.. I remember stumbling into the waiting room.. seeing her parents and mine and Aubrey.. and I fell into my dads arms and I cried.”

Noah remained silent, his arms still tightly around Beca’s neck as the woman tried to compose herself enough to finish the story.

“It was two days later when I finally found myself able to think, and I felt like kicking myself because in the two days that I spent crying, screaming, begging and pleading for Chloe to come back, I had forgotten that I had a son. Aubrey brought me to see you, and you were perfect. You had her hair, and when you opened your eyes.. and they were that same shade of blue, I almost forgot how to breath. It hurt losing her, and it still hurts to this day, but you.. you are so much like her, Noah. You have that same spirit she had, and it has made it hurt a little less every single day.” She wiped her eyes, pushing him back so she could meet his eyes. “Please, if you ever feel like you are falling in love, run away. I couldn’t stand if I had to see you go through this kind of pain. It would destroy me. So, please, Noah, if you ever fall in love, walk away from it.”

Noah kissed Beca’s cheek, standing up and walking to the fireplace. He picked up the photo frame and ran his fingers over Chloe’s image, smiling. “Mom? Do you ever think you are going to smile like that again?” he asked, bringing the picture back to the couch with him.

Beca looked at the photo, remembering the exact moment it had been taken. She had just led the Bellas to victory for her fourth and final time, and Aubrey had been running around the after party with a camera, taking pictures at every instance. Chloe had grabbed Beca around the neck, pressing their cheeks together as Aubrey trained the camera on them. The smiles on their faces were that pure joy of knowing they had each other, and it almost pained Beca to look at it. She looked at Noah, a sad smile on her face. “One day, I think I will, little man,” she mumbled, kissing the top of his head. “Go do your homework.”

He stood up, putting the picture back before grabbing his backpack. He was at the bottom of the stairs when he turned and looked at Beca -- and God, did he look like Chloe -- with a smile on his face. “I love you, mom.”

“I love you, too, baby.”


End file.
